Thursday, January 22, 2009

Should Portland let this slide?

I don't like his policies. I don't like his recklessness. I don't like the fact that he mercilessly panders to the city's green community. I don't like his seemingly endless passion for lame-brained civic projects and publicity stunts. I don't like that he's a cold, calculating career politician in a bike-commuting sheep's clothing. And I don't like the fact that he never returned one of my phone calls asking for a quote when I was working as an intern at a certain local weekly publication (not that I'm still bitter or anything).

Despite all of that, if Adams is finally telling the truth about his relationship with Beau Breedlove and that everything they did together was consensual and legal, then this city needs to let it go. Fine, so he lied about what could very well have been a perfectly legal personal affair between two adults. What would you have done in his shoes with a mayoral bid on the line? Tell the truth about your private life and watch the political career you fought and clawed to build out of nothing go up in flames?

Fat chance.

Bill Clinton lied while under oath and the nation gave him a pass. Not every public figure has been so lucky while caught up in similar circumstances. Should there be an investigation into whether or not Adams had sex with a minor? Absolutely. If those allegations can't be proven, well, then let me pop the happy collective marshmallow and gumdrop bubble we've all floating in while caught up in the wake of Obama-mania. Politicians lie every day about all sorts of things and, as we should all know, politics are a filthy, filthy business.

Taking a politician's word for anything is like convincing yourself that a stripper is really charmed by your personality and lame one-liners. Everyone in a position of power, be it the president or a manager of a Build-A-Bear Workshop, has had to fib, toss some skeletons in a closet and step on a few very nice people to get there. Does that make it all OK?

Of course not but this whole bloody country was built on lies, huge ones and little white ones and ones the size of Beau Breedlove too. I don't like it either but that's just the way things are.

So Adams was stupid enough to let his guard (and his pants, let us not forget the pants) down long enough to become smitten with a poor guy whose parents were spiteful or oblivious enough to name him Beau Breedlove. Even worse, he got caught lying about it. If Adams couldn't see a Grand Canyon-sized political liability like Beau coming from a thousand miles away then maybe he isn't so shrewd after all.

Still, attack our mayor for his political views. Hound him for his ridiculous bridge toll proposal and the horrible Burnside couplet plan that he keeps pushing. If it can't be proven that he had sex with a minor then this city needs to stop the cries for his resignation and let Sam go back to doing what he does best: giving Portland much more legitimate reasons to regret electing him mayor.

And don't blame me, I voted for Sho.

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FYI: The photo above was copied from a Flickr pool. It belongs to a Flickr user named "dontbecreepy," whose great photostream full of shots of Sam Adams caught in several awkward poses can be found here.